Everyday Echoes in 90s’ Bengali Society: Re investigating Everyday Present Through Popular Media Texts

Abstract

Encompassing the routines, habits, interactions and rituals that shape a culture’s unique identity, the theme of everyday life reflects how people live and navigate their daily existence, expressing values, beliefs, and social norms. ‘Everyday’ as a theme allows to understand various aspects of culture, including art, literature, cuisine, language, and social customs creating an influence on how individuals perceive and interact with their environment. The research paper aims to understand and reflect how media texts chiefly Desh, one of the prime Bengali literary magazines have documented a generation’s cultural evolution, its changing aspects, popular and emerging trends offering readers a window into the diverse tapestry of Bengali society, highlighting both the mundane and the extraordinary aspects of daily existence.Content and discourse analysis for both literary and non literary texts shall be employed as textual strategies. Methodological tools of ethnography, cultural anthropology shall be applied in the study. Conceptual framework of representations and popular culture will be particularly instrumental in capturing the changing dynamics of the selected decade. The time frame selected is the decade of early 90s. The study thus aims to analyze the contents-essays, articles, advertisements and short storiespublished in the magazine in order to attempt an epistemological approach to establish the validity of the media texts as representative tools in gaining a deeper understanding of how Bengali Desh magazines of the 1990s captured the vibrancy, complexity, and resilience of everyday life in Bengal, leaving an indelible mark on the cultural landscape of the region.